Question

Most mature C++ projects seem to have an own reflection and attribute system, i.e for defining attributes which can be accessed by string and are automatically serializable. At least many C++ projects I participated in seemed to reinvent the wheel.

Do you know any good open source libraries for C++ which support reflection and attribute containers, specifically:

• Defining RTTI and attributes via macros
• Accessing RTTI and attributes via code
• Automatic serialisation of attributes
• Listening to attribute modifications (e.g. OnValueChanged)

Answer 1

You could have a look at the two tools below. I’ve never used either of them, so I can’t tell you how (im)practical they are.

XRTTI:

Xrtti is a tool and accompanying C++ library which extends the standard runtime type system of C++ to provide a much richer set of reflection information about classes and methods to manipulate these classes and their members.

OpenC++:

OpenC++ is C++ frontend library (lexer+parser+DOM/MOP) and source-to-source translator. OpenC++ enables development of C++ language tools, extensions, domain specific compiler optimizations and runtime metaobject protocols.